


Unexpected Solace

by Seal9



Series: Second Chance [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Artificial SuperIntelligence, Best Friends, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Leonard Snart Lives, Oculus is alive, Other, Time Travel, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 08:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19292170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seal9/pseuds/Seal9
Summary: Leonard Snart was saved from the explosion the destroyed the Vanishing Point, except it wasn't by the Legends. Instead, his saviour was the entity he sacrificed himself to destroy.The Oculus chooses to give Leonard a second chance in life.Prequel to 'Of All Places'.





	Unexpected Solace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maricejayo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maricejayo/gifts).



> As Maricejayo requested, here is a one-shot of the relationship I imagined for Leonard and the Oculus. 
> 
> I wasn't going to write this up as an actual story because I didn't think anyone cared for it, but I had all these ideas for it anyway. As it seems, at least one of you wanted this as a story, so here it is in 13k words. At this point, the Oculus is really just an OC in disguise. 
> 
> It shouldn't matter which order you read this series in. They were both designed to reference each other, but I think it's a nice experience reading Of All Places first, and then coming back to this. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

_Hey, wake up._

Groggy is one word to describe how Leonard feels as something slaps at his cheek and wakes him from unconsciousness. Sore is another. Dead seems like an appropriate adjective too. 

He feels another light slap at the side of his face, and his eyes shoot open in an instant, only to be immediately blinded by the endless white light around him. Great pain courses through him, almost making him succumb to unconsciousness.

_Come on. Don’t go back to sleep._

What the hell is that voice? And why does it sound so familiar?

Something shakes him, or at least he thinks so. His head hurts too much to discern reality. 

Regardless, Leonard opens his eyes more carefully this time, peering through them as his pupils adjust to make the sight comfortable. 

_That’s it._

The voice is frustratingly familiar as if Leonard should recognise it, but he can’t quite find the associated memory that it’s connected to.

Leonard takes in his surroundings when his eyes fully open and his mind feels capable enough to process thoughts. 

“Where the hell am I?” Leonard mutters, standing around uncomfortable, not sure what he’s meant to do. 

_Not Hell, that’s for sure. You’re welcome by the way._

The unexpectedness of the eerily familiar voice makes him jump in fright as he looks around for the source. It sounds like it originates from everywhere, but also not exactly around him. It feels more internal. 

_Congratulations, arsehole, you’re dead._

Right in front of his eye, the form of his father appears with arms crossed over his chest and an unimpressed expression over his face. 

Except, this looks nothing like the man who he fired an icicle through the heart of after his sister was threatened with a bomb in her neck. No, this is his father when he was younger. Much younger. Leonard almost wonders how he’s so quick to recognise him, until he remembers that he had tried to hand over an emerald to this man just a few months ago.

An attempt to save his childhood. Unfortunately, everything still went to shit.

“Though I suppose I’m now free, so, thanks for that,” Lewis Snart shrugs with a disgruntled expression as it looks elsewhere, “I guess.” 

Paralysed with fear, and overwhelming confusion, Leonard just stands there with his mouth hanging loose, eyes scanning his father’s body while memories of him resurface in his head. 

“Still,” Lewis fixes his gaze back on Snart, “You’ve really gone and screwed things up. Bloody Legends.”

Even in his current mental state, Leonard gets the impression that the _thing_ wasn’t giving any compliments.

XXX

Calling their situation _simple_ doesn’t seem like the right word Leonard would use, but the Oculus seems adamant that it is. Something about relativity and primitivity. Leonard’s pretty sure it was an insult, but he’s too absorbed with trying to understand this situation that he doesn’t quite process the possible insult. 

The Oculus, the _thing_ in front of him, is the most advanced artificial superintelligence that the universe has ever seen. But it’s just a brain, which means that despite seeing, knowing, and being able to calculate every possibility in existence, it needs tools to enact these thoughts.

As it turns out, the Oculus is responsible for the original Time Masters. It was what gave them the location of the Vanishing Point, with designs and everything they needed to know to make a habitable environment within the nothingness at the edge of time. When the base had been set up, it then gave them the instructions on how to build the Wellspring, which included setting off a supernova to create an eternal power source. When that was complete, the last step was to build the Oculus Cradle, the large box that sat above the supernova. This was the tool that the Oculus would use to manipulate and perfectly view the timeline. 

When the first Time Masters retired, a new group came in, and in just a few decades, the Oculus soon found the situation at the Vanishing Point turning upside down. The one weakness it had was that it couldn’t manipulate anything within the Vanishing Point, which meant that when the new Time Masters saw an opportunity to reverse engineer the Oculus Cradle and give themselves direct control, the Oculus was unable to stop it. 

“And that’s how I spent eternities stuck as a slave within my own machine,” Mick says. 

Leonard wasn’t comfortable with seeing his father’s face, especially the younger version that reminded him so intimately of his father’s downward spiral. For now, it’s taking the face of Mick Rory, but even that isn’t sitting so comfortably with Leonard. 

“But now I’m free,” Mick smiles warmly. 

The real Mick never smiles, let alone in such a warm manner. It’s unsettling. 

“How am I not dead?” Leonard asks.  
“That was easy. See, you did die, but then I undid that,” Mick answers so nonchalantly as if it could just finish there and expect to be understood completely.

Leonard’s bewildered expression indicates that he’s going to require a bit more explanation.

Mick sighs, “Fine. You blew up the Cradle, but it blew up in stages. For 0.00000001 seconds, I had full control again, which was enough time for me to create a brand-new timeline, drag your body through to the Vanishing Point, delete the new timeline, move your consciousness over to the new body, and let your old body incinerate in the explosion.

“See,” Mick grins, “Simple.”

XXX

“Fuck you,” Leonard growls with fury in his eyes, angrily pointing at Mick, “I cut my bloody strings when I sacrificed myself. I’m not going to let you put them back on me and puppet me around the universe.”

Mick narrows its eyes, “You were fine with travelling across history to stop Vandal Savage. This isn’t any different, except this is much more important.”  
“I’m not fucking fine after learning that the Time Masters were controlling me,” Leonard snaps in spite, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away.

“Did you enjoy it?”  
Leonards scoffs, “What’s that got to do with it?”  
Mick stares Leonard down, “The Time Masters couldn’t use my powers to make you enjoy travelling across history. If you did, then that’s entirely on you.”

Leonard steps up to Mick, looking dangerously close to raising his fists and throwing the first punch, “I have free will. I am not letting you take that away from me again!”

“Hey!” Mick growls defensively, shrinking the gap between it and Leonard to less than a foot apart, “I was a puppet just as much, if not more than you! Yet, instead of freeing me from those arseholes, you Legends decided to try and fucking kill me! Did it not occur to you that the problem was the people, not the machine?” Leonard feels the physical slam of Mick’s palm onto his chest, stumbling him backwards, “You could have easily scoured the Vanishing Point of corrupt Time Masters and we wouldn’t be having this problem. But you lot just seem to be awfully fixated on your heroics, which seems to be stupidly associated with idiotic self-sacrifices.”

Fire burns inside Leonard’s body, rage wanting to spew out and unleash itself on what’s in front of him. But Leonard has always prided himself on being emotionally aware of his own thoughts, so while it feels like he’s experiencing pure anger, a part of him realises that all of it is just a disguise for the fear and confusion he’s experiencing. 

Leonard wants to both simultaneously punch ‘Mick,’ and sit down. He needs a bloody mental break. His body feels sick, and not just from the supposed side effect of being put into a new body. 

Clenching his fists into tight balls, sighing loudly, Leonard sits down on nothing. It’s complicated for him to describe. The ground exists, but it also doesn’t. Only where it needs to does it exist, but even that’s not quite true. It’s simply beyond his understanding. 

“Look,” Mick and its gruff voice approach him slowly, “What happened, that can’t be undone now. So we need to make do with the situation we have, and that’s you working for me so I can continue making sure the universes continue to exist. As stupid as your plan was, it was noble that you sacrificed yourself to save free-will. But this doesn’t have to be the end for Leonard Snart. I’m offering you a chance to continue to do more.”

“How am I supposed to trust you?” Leonard stares up at Mick, hands fidgeting in his lap, “Why should I believe that you care for the universe and that you’re not going to use me to take it over?”  
Mick scoffs, “Why would I want that? I already see everything, I already know everything. I have no lust for power or control over the universe. Any universe for that matter. I exist to look after them and stop anyone who wishes to destroy them.”

No amount of pleading, or explanation, or anything will ever help Leonard get over the instinctual distrust he has towards the Oculus. Maybe it’s just the cynical nature within him that doesn’t believe any good can come out of power like that. But when he thinks about it, he never trusted Rip, and yet he still wanted to take down Vandal Savage all the same.

“Fuck you,” Leonard grumbles, hand rubbing tiredly over his face.  
Mick laughs, “Fuck you too, Leonard Snart. Is that a yes?”

Leonard looks up to see the brutish hand extended towards him, with the curious expression on Mick’s face staring back down at him. 

As soon as Leonard extends his hand around to grab hold of Mick’s wrist, the world goes white.

XXX

“Why do you appear to me as people I know? Do you not have your own form?” Leonard stares out the window of the space station, watching as dozens of thousands of exhaust plumes light up the starry black sky.

Mick grunts, “No. I appear to people in the forms that hold their most significant emotional connections and reactions. They are the easiest ones to simulate because there is so much familiarity within the mind of the host.”  
Leonard arches an eyebrow, “You showed my father when he was young. That supposed to mean anything?”

He feels uncomfortable about having his emotions read so intimately by the Oculus, but Leonard knows that any effort to try and prevent it is futile. It pisses him off that he is forced to be so complacent about it. 

Mick shrugs with one shoulder, the other arm above its head on the glass window looking out into space, “You hate that version of him a lot, but I chose it because it was your most recent sighting of him.”

Leonard steps back from the window, “Can you be someone else please? I can’t keep looking at Mick.”  
Mick steps back and looks at Leonard with genuine curiosity, “He’s your friend, isn’t he? I thought this would be the most comfortable form for me to take.”

He doesn’t know why he wants to answer it. Maybe it’s just because he’s feeling so emotionally vulnerable considering everything right now that it just feels easy for him to open up.

“Every time I look at him, you, I just see the person that I left to the mercy of the Time Masters,” Leonard turns back to the stars, watching as a ship off in the distance cuts the engine, fires the manoeuvring thrusters to perform a 180 flip, then reignite as it approaches the station, “I ruined his life, and I couldn’t stomach the idea of letting him die when I knew I could do something about it.”

When Leonard glances over, Mick is gone, and in its place is Leonard’s redheaded ex. 

Leonard makes an audibly disapproving sound, “No.”  
Alexa smirks before disappearing, “How about now?”

Raymond Palmer stares at him with that stupidly annoying, white-toothed smile.

Leonard grunts and rolls his eyes, “That’ll do.”  
Palmer smiles, “Good. Now finish your lunch. We got places to be.”

“You trying to boss me around is getting on my fucking nerves,” Leonard drawls in a dangerous tone.  
Raymond grins, “Music to my ears.”

XXX

After saving a colonisation from being wiped out by an asteroid in the Black Eye galaxy, which Leonard is trying really hard not to show how impressed he is, Leonard drops lazily into the wooden chair of the cabin that the Oculus found for him on a planet in a nearby star system. Another thing Leonard is trying really hard not to be impressed by. 

“Admit it,” Raymond leans smugly against the wall of the cabin, “You enjoyed being a he-.”  
“Can you just shut up?” Leonard drawls, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wooden headrest, “I agreed to do these tasks for you. Not to listen to you yammering away in my head.”

Raymond sighs loudly, but it falls silent.

Leonard takes the opportunity to relax, his body still burning off the remnants of adrenaline that have been coursing through him. Never in his life did he think he’d have to ride an asteroid, drill inside it, then plant seismic charges to crack it open, ensuring that the smaller pieces would burn up in the atmosphere, rather than cracking the surface of the planet like a shell.

This whole situation has been just one big hit of euphoria. 

And this is his first task from the Oculus. 

He doesn’t even want to let it cross his mind as a single thought, knowing that the Oculus can read it easily, but there was something undeniably satisfying about saving people. God. Now he’s beginning to understand why Barry likes being the Flash so much. 

“You know,” Raymond’s voice breaks the silence.

Leonard lets out an exaggerated moan in response.

Raymond ignores him, “Your hate for me is kinda misplaced. I didn’t do anything wrong. I was never your enemy.”  
“Misplaced?” Leonard scoffs in disbelief, rising to his feet and he looks across the cabin to Raymond sitting by the bed, “No. My hatred for you exactly where it should be.”

In the slightly lesser gravity on this planet, Leonard’s stomping on the cabin floor adds a bit more momentum and strength to his step, going airborne for a fraction of a second. 

“You know what you did wrong? You existed. It’s as simple as that,” Leonard snaps harshly, leaning in close, “And then you created a group of followers that built you a tool to give you control over time and space. Do you not see how wrong that is? You played god, and look how that turned out for you! They used your powers to manipulate my life! None of which would have happened if you didn’t exist in the first place!”

There have been times throughout his journey on the Waverider where he’s seen Raymond looking sad or disappointed. Usually, he wouldn’t care much about it unless it was going to affect him directly. 

But never has he seen such a broken and genuinely hurt expression on Raymond’s face. 

An unfamiliar feeling forms in his stomach as that exact expression stares right back at him.

Leonard blinks, and the cabin lies empty before him. 

Few instances of such mental conflict in Leonard’s past come to his mind, and he can quite easily determine that none of them has left him as conflicted between regret and passion for what he believes as this one. 

He just can’t trust the Oculus. He can’t rationalise it in his head, because everything he knows in his life tells him that nothing good can come with such godlike powers. 

And yet, a tiny part of him wants to call it back and say sorry. 

XXX

Weeks pass in silence and absence from the Oculus. Leonard gets a few days rest in the cabin before he goes to sleep one night on the small bed and wakes up in a bustling city 24,000 light years away. 

It’s beautiful, extravagant and feels like it came straight out some sci-fi movie, yet Leonard can’t just get his enthusiasm to give a shit about it. Even when he looks out the window and sees flying cars streaking across the sky, weaving in and out of buildings, Leonard just stares blankly with his mind focused on other things. 

For the sake of the universe, it’s not complete silence. Sometimes Leonard gets these flashes and sudden thoughts in his head, like daydreaming of a conversation. He soon realises that it’s the Oculus’ current medium of communication, and that it contains whatever instructions he needs to follow for the task. 

The sensation of these strange and different thoughts is unsettling. Just the idea that there might be other thoughts in head that don’t belong to him send up all different kinds of alarms that have him going almost into a panic attack one afternoon. That was an unpleasant experience.

Leonard feels like he could go crazy continuing to think about, constantly doubting reality and every other thought in his head, but there’s a distinctiveness between his own conscious thoughts and the ones implanted from the Oculus. It’s enough for him to let his mind discern what reality is to him. Whether he wants to consider it or not, he also comes to realise that the Oculus clearly has the power to do more than just send some flashes. 

Whatever it did to tangle itself in Leonard’s brain, so he can see and talk to it, it could easily use that to rewrite his entire mind and control him around like a puppet. Leonard hates how conflicted he feels when he considers that thought. Something within him wants to be grateful towards the Oculus, but another part of him realises that’s like saying ‘thanks for not mind controlling me.’ So, in the end, he doesn’t really know how he should feel about that either. 

All he really does know, is that he’s terrified.

No amount of denying it can change that fact. 

Not even meta-humans elicited this kind of reaction from him. Yes, Leonard will comfortably admit that he doesn’t like the idea of meta-humans because he’s cynical and expects the power to corrupt them, but people like Barry, Stein and Jax, provided some assurance that not every meta-human is bad.

There is something far bigger, stronger and godlike inside his head, and it terrifies his very being. Time travel and the power to rewrite one’s destiny had already blown his mind. Now this?

It all boils down to this one simple conclusion. 

Leonard is just a human, faced with something that transcends human comprehension. 

And yet, for something that every cynical bone in his body wants to believe is a power-hungry being with some side-agenda for universal domination, he can’t put that kind of assumption with the pained and broken look on Raymond’s face. Like two puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, they don’t match. Leonard simply cannot process any solution where both that pained look, and this idea of a monster in his head, co-exist. 

Close to two months since he last talked to the Oculus, sitting under a palm tree with his back against the trunk, Leonard calls out to the Oculus. 

“I’m sorry!”

Leonard waits, looking for the boy scout’s body to appear somewhere in this oasis in the desert, but nothing shows up. 

“I’m sorry!” Leonard calls out again.

“Why?” Raymond’s soft voice appears off to his side, sitting on a small mound of sand, head looking down between its legs as the wind picks up sand off the surface.  
Leonard sighs with a regretful expression on his face, “Because I realised that all my fears were founded on my cynicism. I realised that my hatred towards you was misplaced because I wasn’t seeing you. I was seeing what I wanted to see, and that was something that abuses their power. Something that terrifies me.”

Even with Raymond’s face partially obscured, Leonard can still see the pain and hurt on its face. It disgusts him that there’s a part of himself that lashed out and said such things to bring about this kind of damage. He’s done many hurtful acts in his life, but never has he felt this much regret for them compared to now. There was always an excuse he could fall back on, but not this time. 

“I’m not good at trusting people. Less so at seeing the good in others” Leonard mutters quietly, probably too quiet if he were talking to someone who didn’t communicate through his head, “But that’s no excuse for what I said to you.”

Raymond looks up from the ground and over towards Leonard, sadness behind its eyes. It doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. Just looks at him. 

“I don’t deserve this opportunity you’ve given me,” Leonard holds onto the trunk of the palm tree as he rises to his feet, “I’ll help you find someone else. Someone who doesn’t let fear and prejudice get the better of them. And if it means that I have to die so you can bond with this new person, so be it,” Leonard huffs, “I should have bloody stayed dead.”

“Earn it,” Raymond’s voice speaks clearly in his ears as Leonard began turning away.

Leonard stops and turns back around. 

Raymond is staring at him still, its expression more neutral than before, “You said you don’t deserve this opportunity, so earn it. There were 674 other people in the Vanishing Point when you blew it up. I could have picked any one of them in the time I had control, wired myself into their brain and had a body of my own, but I chose you as a vessel.”

That has Leonard surprised, “Why though?”

“You wanted to atone for your sins,” Raymond says solemnly, “But despite your sacrifice, you never believed that it would be enough to make up for them. Hell would have consumed you, because you don’t believe you deserve to go anywhere but,” a soft expression forms on its face, “I didn’t want to see that happen.”

When Leonard was holding down that button, it never occurred to him in those moments where he might end up. 

“Your friend Barry-”

He doesn’t even try to refute it. Despite their differences and battles, Barry and his team saved Lisa when they didn’t have to. That’s worth a lot to Leonard.

“- believed that you could do good. As annoying as that speedster is with his time travel mishaps,” Raymond’s face flickers with a brief look of annoyance, “I agree with him about that.”

Leonard wonders what exactly he did to deserve this kind of belief that people put in him. He supposes that this is what he should be earning. 

“What you said hurt me,” Raymond continues, standing up from the mound of sand and looking across the space to Leonard, “But even after saying that to me, you continued on with the missions, never once considering abandoning it. So I hope that means some part of you believes in what I exist for, and might even accept me.”

Leonard’s breath is shaky as the heat of the desert starts to make him sweat, but the environmental conditions couldn’t be further from the top of his concerns, “I’m tired of hating you, or what I imagined of you. I was wrong, and I hurt you because of that. I wish I could promise that I’ll never be cynical again, but I can promise that I’ll allow myself to try and accept you for who you really are.”

For the first time since Raymond vanished in that cabin, it smiles. A weak smile, faint with hope, but a smile nonetheless. 

“Maybe we should start over,” Raymond suggests, “Put all this past us. Turning over a new leaf, as you humans like to call it.”  
Leonard chuckles briefly, “Oh yeah, what do other species call it.”  
“A sentient species of robots call it reprogramming. They’re quite literal in that sense,” Raymond answers with a weak smirk. 

Leonards nods, and for a few moments, they’re silent until he speaks, “I don’t want to pretend that I never said those things, but I don’t want to let them impact where we go from now.”  
Raymond nods, “I understand. I accept your apology, Leonard.”

Sticking out its hand, Raymond starts slowly approaching Leonard, “To starting over.”

Leonard smiles as Raymond continues to get closer, and just as Leonard goes to stick out his arm, he blinks, and Raymond is no longer there. Instead, he must adjust his gaze downwards to find Sara Lance. Its arm sticks out in front of it, a genuinely warm smile on Sara’s face that Leonard doesn’t think he can’t get enough of.

Leonard extends his hand towards Sara’s, gripping it firmly as they shake, “To starting over.”

XXX

It would be an unrealistic expectation to believe that things suddenly seemed to be fixed from that moment onwards. Leonard still holds onto some of the guilt of his words, and the Oculus continues to unsettle Leonard’s conscious at times, but he’s making a point of trying to accept it, for all its traits. 

Their reconciliation and attempt at understanding each other have brought them closer together. Light bickering and bantering exchanges between them, though there are some solemn discussions. On the odd occasion, they have conversations that would make any other person have an existential crisis.

Months later, in a cave system that holds a special mineral that will be useful for a special warp-drive 90,000 years later, Leonard has one of those moments where he begins questioning reality. 

“You seem pretty real to me,” Leonard touches Sara’s back, feeling his hand physical stop moving forward when his finger presses up to the yellow shirt, “Is that why you don’t show up when there are other people around?”

Sara jumps down the small drop in the rock tunnel, “Reality, like me, is an illusion. It’s just a culmination of various sensors in your body sending different signals to your brain, creating the experience of what you see here. Now, an overload of those signals can cause some strain on the brain,” it giggles briefly at its rhyme, to which Leonard rolls his eyes in response, “So I try not to meddle too much when other people are around. Being aware that I don’t really exist, adds another layer of thought to your brain’s processes. Human brains don’t really handle multiple sensory processing all too effectively, relative to most other species.”

Leonard grunts, “Gee, thanks.”

Sara flashes a smirk over its shoulder as Leonard jumps down the rock platform after it, “Oh, don’t feel bad about it, Leonard. You humans have your perks.”

Leonard sticks his hand out again and touches her back, “So why can’t I push my hand through you if you’re just an illusion?”  
Sara stops and presses its lips together and turns around, “Because I make your brain want to stop pushing forward. Humans are able to understand that they can touch what they see. Less confusing when this happens.”

Sara steps forward and its chest engulfs Leonard’s hand up to his wrist, which is now sticking out of the space between its neck and breasts. When his mind starts racing as it processes the jarring sight, he understands exactly what the Oculus was describing. 

Sara flickers out of existence for a second, before reappearing further away, only to approach him and stop when its body collides with his still outstretched hand, “See.”

Leonard nods and puts his hand back to his side. 

Sara turns around and continues walking again, “As I said, reality is an illusion. Poke my fingers around in your brain, send just the right kind of signals, and you get to see, touch, and hear Sara Lance in all her sexiness, as if she were right here in person.”

Leonard narrows his gaze at the back of Sara’s head, perfectly aware at the subtle taunt behind its words, “Ever considered that I may be the illusion inside your head?”

Sara stops immediately, turning around and holding a hand up in a halting gesture, “Hold it, space ranger. I’m trying to make things easy on you by keeping this illusion simple,” there’s a touch of superiority in its tone, but he’s getting used to the Oculus’s ego, “You thinking stuff like that doesn’t make things better for either of us. Despite everything that’s happened to you in your life, you’re a fairly sane guy. Don’t need you going crazy because you think you’re an illusion.”

An amused smirk forms on Leonard’s face, “Maybe you’re just saying that so I don’t realise I’m the illusion.”  
Sara sighs dramatically, throwing its hand in the air with exasperation, “Now you’re just being a pain in my arse.”

Leonard laughs, “Music to my ears,” he drawls, playfully bumping Sara with his shoulder as he continues further into the cave. 

XXX

They don’t mention the whole ‘deserving this opportunity’ thing until a year into their journey, while Leonard’s sitting on a beach, staring up at the binary stars far off beyond the horizon. 

Blue alcohol swirls around in his glass, something extracted from the sap of one of the various species of trees that this beach’s bar harvests from. The closest drink from Earth that he can compare it to is rum, but thicker. Still, he’s come to the conclusion that Earth drinks pale in terms of pleasantness. Although, maybe the exotic nature of all these alien drinks have skewed his bias against Earth. Regardless, the fuzzy sensation in his head that he has right now is one of the least agitating ones.

There are few times that Leonard will accept being shirtless, but sitting back on his beach chair, he doesn’t mind catching a few rays, as they call it. Thanks to the distance from the twin suns and the density of the atmosphere, the radiation that his body absorbs is too weak to worry about any kinds of lasting damage. 

Placing his drink down on the small stool beside his chair, Leonard closes his eyes, hands pillowing his head as he relaxes back. 

However, the opportunity only lasts a few moments as he feels a shadow looming over him, and the fuzziness turns into a discomforting throbbing as his mind tries to battle whether he really has lost the contact of heat, or if it never went away. 

Either way, he knows that the source of this surge of confusion comes from the Oculus.

“Stop that, you’re making my head hurt,” Leonard says with a touch of annoyance.  
“Sorry. Can we talk?” the softness of Sara’s voice is just enough that there’s a spark of concern forming in his consciousness. 

Cracking one eye open to look through the dark tint of his sunglasses, Leonard sees Sara looming over him, a resigned and hesitant expression on its face. Leonard leans forward in the chair, shifting to a more upright position as Sara takes a step back and the chaotic debate in his head resides. 

Looking over at Sara, he nods silently, gesturing for it to say what’s on its mind. 

“Are you happy?” Sara asks with quite possibly the most serious expression he’s seen on its face.  
Leonard recoils slightly at the unexpectedness of the question, “Am I what?”

“Are you happy?” Sara repeats, maintaining the seriousness on its face, “With this? What we’re doing?”  
Leonard coughs as he straightens himself on the chair, “Uh, I guess,” he narrows his eyes with an uncertain scepticism, “Is this some trick question?”

Sara shakes its head and kneels in the sand beside his chair, “It’s been a year since we began, and I want to make sure that you still aren’t having doubts about doing this.”

Leonard breathes in as the realisation of what is being asked of him sinks in, “Right, uh,” he swings his legs over the side of the chair, facing Sara as he works an answer in his mind, but when nothing comes to his mind after a full minute, he lets out a weak chuckle, “You know I’m terrible when it comes to being in touch with my emotions.”

Sara smiles amusedly, “I’ve gathered.”

Leonard’s face focuses as he really tries to think of an answer. After some time, he thinks has something. 

“I’ve never once believed that the universe was fair,” Leonard begins, “I just couldn’t imagine that all the horrible shit that people suffer with happens because it was deemed fair to them. But I’ve also learnt that unfairness has two sides, and that people like me, can get the opportunity of something great.”  
Sara tilts its head at him curiously, “You don’t think you deserve this?”

Leonard shrugs, looking down at his hands, “Who deserves this? How do you decide who deserves the opportunity to travel through time and space, saving civilisations and prevent calamity events? You told me to earn it, but I don’t believe there’s some invisible scale that measures someone’s worthiness and has some numerical value of their sins versus their good deeds. I just had to make myself believe that this was an opportunity to end my reign of suffering, and start turning that into something better for the universe.”

Sara shifts closer in the sand, stopping just before his knees “Are you happy?”  
Leonard nods, looking up from his hands to its face, “Yeah. I’m happy. You’ve given me an experience unlike anything I could have imagined,” a warm smile begins forming on his face, “And I’ve even come to actually like you.”

Sara returns the smile with its own, “We’ve come far from you considering me a blight on the universe.”  
Leonard bows his head, hiding the flicker of shame on his face, “I was an idiot. I hastily judged you for what the Time Masters had turned you into, not for who you really are. And even if you’re an annoying pain in my arse sometimes, you’re a pretty decent friend.”

The laugh that comes from Sara’s mouth is warm and hearty, and Leonard makes himself look up at it and smile. 

He may never come to believe that he deserved this opportunity, but he’s not going to let that stop him from making the most of it.

XXX

Barely two weeks later, and Leonard wonders if he should reconsider his view on their friendship.

Almost two days have passed since he left the warmth and safety of Kandor, the capital of Krypton. That’s two days on foot, travelling through the harsh and blistering winter wasteland that covers every square inch of ground on this continent. It’s too late to turn back now. Supposedly, he’s crossed the halfway point now, and the end is closer than the beginning. Just over a day left on foot. 

In hindsight, he should have taken a speeder for this task.

Harsh conditions such as these require levels of thermal protection that vastly surpass the protection his parka would have provided him. The respirator over his face is the only thing that’s allowing him to breathe the toxic air around him, and even if the air wasn’t toxic, it’s cold enough that a few breaths would result in ice crystals forming in his lungs before ripping the organ apart. 

Pleasant thoughts, Leonard.

A device on his wrist measures his vital signs, providing warnings about when to change the filter on the respirator, when to rest and eat, and when it’s best for him to take a shit. Leonard carries a large hiking pack, strapped over his shoulders and across his chest and waist, making him feel like one of those people an advertisement for mountain climbing expeditions.

Glancing at his wrist, he sees that he’s soon approaching the recommended time to relieve himself. The thought makes him shiver because the last few times he’s had to do that, his balls feel like they get frostbite on them, and it makes him ache for hours while the suit tries to provide heat to his groin. 

Distracted by the dread of his manhood once more suffering the wrath of Krypton’s winter, Leonard misplaces his foot on a slick rock and falls over. 

Fortunately, the blue thermal gear is thick enough to keep his body well insulated, even whilst half his body is submerged in snow. Unfortunately, he can’t say the same about his head, because during the fall, the hoodie had slipped back, and now his skull has snow covering it, making his teeth chatter under the respirator and sending shivers down his entire body. 

Hauling himself into a kneeling position, Leonard wipes the snow off his head and looks forward, trying to figure out if he’s still heading in the right direction. It’s unfortunately very easy to get turned around in the blanket of white snow.

“Don’t worry,” Sara’s voice comes from nearby, sounding perfectly clear as if there isn’t a snowstorm around him, “It’s that way.”

Sitting a rock to his right, the body of Sara Lance, dressed in a Hawaiian t-shirt, short denim shorts, sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat, points down towards a ridge near a chain of mountains. It sits on the rock as if it were a sunchair, hands behind the back of its head, reclining and basking as snow continues to fall down around them at high speeds. 

The sight of such exposed skin in these freezing conditions makes him wince and shiver in addition to the cold. 

“I fucking hate you,” Leonard growls through the respirator, grunting as he pushes his hand against the ground to rise to his feet.  
Sara looks at him over the brim of the sunglasses, an amused eyebrow peeking over the top, “Love you too, Len,” it laughs at the end. 

“Arsehole,” Leonard takes the first step and resumes on his voyage, holding onto warm and relaxing memories of a beach under binary stars. 

XXX

Some days, the truth of his companion slips his mind, and in those short moments where he forgets that he’s probably not even in the same galaxy as her, he thinks that Sara is really with him. It never lasts long, as there’s always something going on that reminds him where he is, what he’s doing, and who his companion really is. 

He has never, and will continue to never, describe the realisation as a disappointment, but there has always been something longing within him that holds onto his attachment and feelings for the assassin. 

Correction. Captain. It had obviously been a while since he last asked about her, because when he last asked, the Oculus regaled Sara’s mischief in the town of Salem. When he next asked, he was informed about how she was adjusting to being team captain. 

Updates about the team are a complicated matter, what with the whole infinite possibilities, liquidity of time, and the concept of relativity, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, that after a year and bit since she kissed him at the Wellspring, Leonard can’t help but think of Sara and how things could have been different for their future. Even if he tried to forget her, not that he intends to, it becomes an almost impossibility when he sees her body every day. 

But, while the body may be the same in all its wavy blonde hair, freckled face, and well-toned muscles that the tiny masochist voice in Leonard’s head would gladly have beat him up, it’s how the body is used that makes the distinction between the two entities so obvious.

Sara always gave the impression of being trapped within her body. Part of him could understandably sympathise with her, especially taking into consideration her surprisingly nonchalant comparison of the bloodlust to a ticking timebomb that locks her consciousness behind a cage of indiscriminate violence. Sara had every right to feel trapped. Leonard just wished she didn’t have to. 

He’s told that this is no longer the case, that Sara had successfully suppressed the curse and allowed her true and more free nature to start showing, but it doesn’t change that Leonard only knows Sara as who she was before his death. 

It is because Leonard hasn’t gotten to see the current Sara, that his only knowledge of a Sara that looks free and lively comes from the Oculus. It smiles more in just a week than he saw Sara smile in his entire time on the Waverider. Although, he distinctly remembers Sara as the sarcastic half-smirk kind of person, so it’s not really a valid comparison. 

Still, the Oculus is expressive and quite animated with Sara’s body, and far more emotional and sentimental than he could ever have imagined from the Oculus. It strikes out to Leonard as interesting, because he sucks at feelings, and the Sara he knew was quite like him in that department. 

It is for that reason as to why the aforementioned distinction is so obvious between Sara and the Oculus. Only because they share the same body, Leonard can imagine that he’s travelling with some long-lost twin or alternate reality doppelganger of Sara.

The Oculus has also often proclaimed its appreciation of such an attractive body, despite being unable to show it off to anyone bar Leonard. But that fact has never seemed to deter the Oculus. In fact, it often playfully teases him about it, knowing full well his own physical attraction to her body. 

Other than the matter of attractiveness, the Oculus has been respectful towards him about his feelings for Sara. Repressed feelings tend to be a common theme with Leonard, and yet, deep in an alien forest, the Oculus was someone he felt comfortable confiding in. He talked about his ex, how her painful betrayal had shattered his heart and how he let himself become cold inside. How Sara had grown on him and rekindled a hope long forgotten within him. 

They talked about many things that day, and they continue to talk now. He doesn’t imagine he could have this kind of relationship, this friendship, with anyone else. 

When he’ll see Sara again, he doesn’t know. The Oculus doesn’t have an estimated time frame for how long their partnership will last. The universe is big. The multiverse makes it bigger. And time is just another exponential factor to consider. 

Regardless of how long it takes, Leonard can’t quite imagine his feelings for Sara ever going away.

XXX

“Can I touch you?” 

Leonard’s head snaps up quickly from the book he was reading, “Excuse me?”  
Sara walks up beside him, propping itself up against the hull of the station, “Can I touch you?”

He slides a slip of paper between the pages before closing the book. Discarding it on the table beside him, Leonard turns to look up at Sara on his other side. 

“I don’t know,” his drawl not forgoing the genuine uncertainty he has, “Can you? I thought you were just in my head.”  
Sara looks down at him and meets his gaze, “It’s different.”

Awfully vague, but he doesn’t press for further information.

Rising from the chair, Leonard moves to stand in front of Sara, “Do I need to do-”  
“No,” Sara cuts him off, blue eyes moving from the centre of his chest to his own, “Do you trust me?”

Words like that should usually raise warnings, often followed by something dangerous or threatening. And yet, for all the possible reasons that Leonard should consider those words a warning and want to back out, he isn’t afraid.

“Absolutely,” Leonard answers confidently. 

Sara nods and begins to lift its hand, guiding it towards his chest. When it lands and begins pressing into him, he feels nothing, and it is the continued lack of senses as Sara’s hands began poking and pushing his body that alerts him to what the Oculus is doing with his mind. He tries to move a finger, finding himself almost entirely paralysed on the spot. 

“What’s it like?” his voice is low and soft, eyes fixated on its face. 

It is so completely enthralled in its actions that it doesn’t respond to him, one hand going down the length of his arm and towards his hand. He doesn’t feel it when Sara’s small hands intertwine with his, and he detects the fluster of emotions on its face as it becomes enamoured with the sensation of the touch. 

“It’s beautiful,” it answers, its other hand closing around their interlocked hands. 

Minutes pass in silence, but as much as Leonard dreads it might be, it never becomes awkward or uncomfortable. Something about watching Sara’s face slide between emotions as its hands run across his torso and head with an intimate delicacy that has him feeling serene. There was a time where something like this would have had him freaking out, or worse. Hands coursing over his body were genuine nightmares at one point, bringing forth unforgotten memories of pain and fear. This is different. Not once does Leonard feel under threat from the Oculus. 

It looks up at him with a glowing smile, blue eyes staring at his own. In one sudden and swift movement, it crashes into Leonard, wrapping its arms around his body and holding onto him. 

He feels that, and as soon control of his limbs return, his arms wrap around the Oculus in return. One hand sits in the small of its back, the other positioned behind its head, holding the Oculus tight against his body.

“Thank you, Leonard.”

XXX

Introductions with the Lantern Corp haven’t gone well. 

Arrested within moments of arriving at this place, Leonard now finds himself suspended in a green bubble over a large platform surrounded by podiums and pillars. Leonard sits cross-legged while one of the speakers reads out the list of crimes he’s being charged with. 

The familiar sensation of sitting in a courtroom is not something Leonard has missed about travelling through space. He remembers the excruciatingly long and dreary court hearings, where Leonard’s blank and expressionless face would show how little he cares for the legal system. He takes relief in the fact that he hasn’t been handcuffed, meaning he can lean back with his arms spread behind him. 

“Temporal manipulation, theft, espionage…” the judge – Leonard is pretty sure the greyish-blue, old looking aliens in green outfits have some other formal name, but he’s going to stick to judge – continues with the list. 

“I kinda expected a friendlier reception to my arrival,” Leonard mutters hopelessly to himself, because he’s seemingly been abandoned since he got here. 

The judge pauses mid-sentence and looks down at him with a flash of anger. The others among the judge narrow their gaze at him too. Leonard would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel some kind of intimidation. The only warning he was given before he woke up on this planet was that these were some of the most important beings in the entire universe. The Oculus never mentioned that he was a wanted fugitive to them. 

Although, despite the revelation, Leonard can’t help but find himself a little prideful in the fact that he’s a universally wanted criminal now. Quite a step up from the FBI’s most wanted list he has to say. 

“How do you plead?” the holographic screen in front of the judges dissipates, and they all look down at him. 

Leonard casts his eyes from the scuff marks on his shoes to the figures above him, “Uh, not guilty.”

Somehow, Leonard thinks they look even more frustrated and annoyed.

“Bring forth the evidence,” one on the left calls out. 

Leonard watches as more men and women in green suits with glowing rings fly down towards the platform. 

“Don’t I get an attorney or something?” Leonard calls out, “I want to make a phone call.”

They all ignore him and continue preparing the extensively long list of evidence claims. 

“Where the hell are you?” Leonard grits through his teeth, “You just going to leave me to these guys?” 

He feels them once more look down at him with intrigue and mild annoyance at his unusual comments. 

“Don’t mind me,” Leonard waves dismissively, then turns his back to them and stares at his lap, “Come on. Show yourself. Need a bit of help here.”

Nothing. 

Damn it. 

Leonard looks around at the visibly angry and disgruntled green guardians. His eyes scan idly past most of the guardians, looking at all the various species that make up the organisation. Some he recognises, others are still foreign to him. Off in the distance, floating at the base of one of the pillars that form the perimeter, Leonard spots two humanoid figures. With his relatively recent experience of Kryptonians, he quickly casts them off as one of them, but they’re both looking at him with a detectable amount of intrigue that makes him reconsider that notion.

Sure, it can be said that everyone is looking at him with some level of intrigue, but they’re looking at him differently, he can feel it. They look at him with familiarity.

They’re not Kryptonians. 

Giddy is not a word that would seem right to be associated with Leonard, but at this moment, the sight of humans is enough to make him feel so. 

“Hey!” Leonard calls out, banging on the encapsulating bubble, “You’re humans!”

A look of surprise is shared between them at his deduction, but neither display any further action. The white man with brown hair has his arms crossed squarely over his chest, covering the green symbol. The darker man beside him, with a buzzcut fairly similar to Leonard’s own, stands with his hands clasped in front of him. They resume talking, too far away for Leonard to even have a hope of hearing, and the opacity of the bubble makes reading their lips difficult. 

Disheartened by the rejection of the first human beings he’s seen in the 18 months since blowing up the Oculus, Leonard slams his fist on the bubble and slumps to the floor with a clear lack of grace. He never imagined he would see humans again so soon. All these months travelling through time and space has made him realise just how insignificant humanity is in the scale of things. Just a tiny blip in the universe that lasts only a moment. So many species that existed hundreds of millenniums before humans, will continue to exist millenniums after humanity fades away. 

But even though his perspective on humanity has been minimalised with his newfound awareness of the diversity of the universe, it never took away the appreciation and nostalgia that would arise whenever he discovers something that reminds him of home. It just sucks that the first sign of humanity is people who likely want him dead for his transgressions against the universe. 

Leonard calls out discretely to the Oculus, praying that Sara’s body appears somewhere nearby, but his attempts are futile. 

Then it occurs to him, and he almost slaps himself for being so forgetful. 

“Hey,” Leonard rises to his feet hastily and calls out to the judges.  
They look down at him, and the one on the far right speaks, “Have you changed your plea?”  
“No,” Leonard responds, “But I hoped I could explain myself.”

The one in the middle shakes his head, “You will have a chance to explain yourself once all the evidence has been processed.”  
“Seriously?” Leonard looks up with mild disbelief.

And he thought the courts back home were slow and rigid. 

Leonard sighs, “Fine. Can you just do something to this bubble so I can’t see anything? Decrease the opacity, or is it higher? I don’t know.”

Leonard feels the judging glares of everyone in this weird open court environment, but he pays them little attention, keeping his focus on the judges. 

A response is not given, but one of them waves their hand and Leonard’s bubble turns solid green, blocking all visibility to the outside world, yet somehow letting light continue to illuminate inside.

Almost immediately, he can tell he’s no longer alone by the weight of Sara’s head on his shoulder and its squashed body against his.

“Sorry,” Sara’s apologetic voice comes from beside him, “This place is pretty overwhelming already. Didn’t want to risk giving you a brain aneurysm in front of all these people.”  
“What the hell is going on?” Leonard would look at Sara, but he doesn’t think he could restrain himself from shaking its body in frustration, “I would have liked some warning about turning myself in to people who consider me a fugitive.”

Sara looks resigned as it shifts beside him, “It’s complicated. Sorry,” it places a reassuring hand on Leonard’s arm, “But I can explain it all later. For now, you just need to repeat exactly what I tell you.”

When the bubble’s opacity changes again minutes later, and Leonard looks out to the open field around him, he immediately begins repeating the worlds the Oculus told him. 

Leonard doesn’t know exactly what he’s talking about, not sure of what a Maltusian is, or who or what Krona is. He mentions something about experiments for temporal omniscience, which he understands is the capacity to know everything, so he makes the connection that it has something to do with the Oculus. 

Barely five minutes later, all the guardians that had been milling around, including the two humans, are dismissed by the judges and Leonard’s bubble moved up to the platform. 

They all look between each other with consideration and reluctance, but the one in the middle left finally breaks the silence and begins speaking, “We knew of the incident in the Vanishing Point, but as to the fate of our creation, we did not.”

Creation? Leonard’s gaze sweeps across them with an obvious look of shock.

“Yes, Leonard Snart,” the one in the middle says, nodding in response to Leonard’s unspoken question, “It seems that our creation has bonded with you. Something not even we designed it to do.”

XXX

“So,” Hal – that’s what he introduced himself to Leonard as when he was summoned back – begins as he sits down on the edge of his bed, “When was the last time you were on Earth?”  
Leonard looks out the window of the tower and stares down at the city below, “18 months, give or take. I had already spent four months travelling through time before then, so I haven’t seen home in a while.”

What is home to him? It’s not like there was a building with four walls and a roof that he could call home. Was it just Central City in general? 

The other man – John – whistles a surprised tune, “Almost two years. We go back every other month.”  
Hal nods to John, then looks at Leonard with both curiosity and empathy, “Have you tried to go back?”

Leonard turns from the window and looks at the two men across the room from him, both of them back in civilian clothes, although their rings remain present on their fingers, the green contrasting with their skin. 

For a yes or no question, it gives Leonard a lot to think about. 

When the Oculus had him in that white space, Leonard demanded to be returned to the Waverider. Not home. Not Earth. For that, he can chalk up to his code of honour and desire to see through the mission of defeating Savage. It felt wrong getting so close, just to miss the ending, but the Oculus didn’t let him, saying that the Legends defeated Savage just fine without him. 

But even with the mission over, Leonard should have still wanted to return to the Waverider for Mick and Sara. Yet, he allowed himself to be guilt-tripped into agreeing to this mission, which Leonard is definitely not known to let happen. However, if there was ever a moment for an exception to that rule, it’s when something he believed he was doing right, ends up jeopardising the safety of the universe. This wasn’t something he could just shrug off and ignore. He certainly couldn’t imagine Sara taking him back if she ever found out he chose her over this.

And so began his new mission. 

He still thinks about Earth a lot. How could he not? He’s human after all. But the longer he travelled across the entire universe, the less he cared for going back. Sure, it would be nice to see familiar faces, but it’s not until he begins enjoying himself through this journey that he realises just how much he hated his life back on Earth. He begins to wonder if the reason for that, is the same reason he stepped onto that Time Ship in the first place. That the world he knew then, didn’t need or care for him, and that in return, he didn’t care for it back. He remembers considering whether Barry was right and that there was good inside him. Leonard never admitted it to himself back then, but he knew that whatever was inside him, was never going to find use if he was stuck in 2016. A change of scenery for Leonard was desperately needed.

“I recognise that look,” Hal chuckles, crossing the room over to Leonard and placing a hand on his shoulder, “That’s the look of someone who understands the universe is bigger than them, and accepted their role in protecting it. The look of someone who has made sacrifices.”

Leonard huffs. One could say that. 

“It’s not in my power anyway. I don’t control where I go,” Leonard answers, sounding as nonchalant as he can. 

It’s not much of an excuse, because he suspects that the Oculus would by now happily take him to Earth for a brief vacation. He stopped treating this like a hostage situation a long time ago.

“But you miss it all the same,” Hal doesn’t have to phrase it as a question, because it’s that obvious on Leonard’s face.  
“Yeah,” Leonard admits, because as much as he no longer cares for going back, “I lived there for over 40 years. And there are people I haven’t seen in a long time.”

Mick. Lisa. Barry and Raymond, he reluctantly admits to himself. 

Sara. 

Sara is different. 

“You had someone?” Hal asks, noticing the deep look on Leonard’s face.  
Leonard shrugs, lips firmly pressed together, “Could have.” 

_Had I not died._

Hal and John nod, seemingly understanding what goes unsaid. 

“Come on,” John calls out, “Let’s go and get some drinks. You can tell us how a petty thief turns into a universal guardian.”  
Leonard sneers at the other Lantern, “I was not a petty thief. FBI most wanted, thank you,” he corrects with a strong sense of pride and dignity. 

Hal laughs and slaps his hand on Leonard’s back, “Don’t mind him. He’s just sour that the most advanced artificial superintelligence isn’t bonded to him.”

Leonard watches as their rings glow with green light as they rise into the air when they exit the building. A platform forms underneath Leonard’s feet, and as the green light energy begins carrying them across the city, he can’t help but admit that this is pretty cool.

“Do those rings come in blue?”

XXX

Ever since Oa and his conversations with the two green guardians, thoughts have been plaguing Leonard’s mind. The Oculus senses it in him, feeling his desire to ask the question that he’s trying desperately not to ask. It’s two weeks later when he finally caves while they’re lying in the bed of a spaceship he’s been hitching a ride on. 

“You could see all the possible futures, right?” Leonard asks.  
Sara’s form lies prone beside him, head propped up in its hands, tilted to look at his face, “You want to see yours?”

Leonard nods, still staring up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the grid-like lines of the metal, “Before. Had I not died.”  
“Are you sure?” Sara runs its hand through his recently shaven hair, making his skull tingle slightly under the illusionary touch. 

“Yes.”

“Close your eyes,” Sara’s voice whispers to him softly.

Doing as he’s told, Leonard falls asleep minutes later and he dreams of what could have been. 

There is a sense of awareness in these dreams, creating an almost cinematic experience for the whole process.

It kicks off in the midst of the action. Leonard and Mick, the latter donned in the bounty hunter armour, sweeping and clearing the maze of corridors in the Time Master facilities. The low hum and coiling of the cold gun synthesising with the crackling of plasma energy from Chronos’ rifle as they engage in shootouts with the waves of soldiers.

Scenes skip forward before his very eyes. The Vanishing Point is theirs for the taking, exposing the corruption of the Time Council and using that to sway the present Time Masters to rise against the Council. Using the temporal data, Rip is able to track Savage’s shuttle holding Kendra and Carter, and after the Legends ensure that the Vanishing Point can’t be repossessed, they take off in pursuit. 

Leonard watches them kill Savage dozens of different ways, sometimes freezing him in a block of ice only for Mick to melt the frozen corpse into a puddle. Other times he coats the floor in ice, distracting Savage enough for Sara to slide in with a blade in hand and slit the tyrant’s throat. It can go any possible way, and he witnesses possibilities where they don’t always make it out unscathed or with a full team. 

Rip gives them a choice. Stay with him and help remake the Time Masters and protect history, or remain here on Earth living out the rest of their lives. It is rare that he stays behind, but every time it is because of his protectiveness for Lisa. The Pilgrim using her as a hostage, and the threats Mick made to him while he was Chronos, motivate Leonard to stay with her. 

In every other possibility he makes it to that point alive, he joins Rip, and Sara’s there with him too. 

Things don’t always go back to normal. Without his sacrifice at the Oculus, nothing so strongly motivates Sara to accept her feelings, and they find themselves at uncertain crossroads. But, that is not always the case. Sometimes, after the heat of successfully completing their mission, saving Rip’s family and defeating Savage, Leonard takes a chance at stealing that kiss from her. 

There isn’t a timeline where she doesn’t try to stop him. 

Whatever happens, the infinite tree of possible futures for his and Sara’s life sprouts from those moments.

XXX

“Something wrong?” Leonard looks up from the plans when Sara suddenly goes quiet mid-sentence.  
Brows furrow on its face, a combined look of frustration and concentration taking hold, “It’s your former team.”

Leonard sits back in the chair and looks at Sara with mild interest, “What about them?”

Sara sighs and holds its head in its hands, “They fucked up. Big time.”  
Leonard frowns, “How so?”  
“Interacted with their past selves, then tried to make a time jump, twice,” Sara grumbles, pouting as arms cross over its chest. 

“God,” Leonard exasperates dramatically, “Who was the idiot with that plan? Rip?”

A mischievous smirk appears on Sara’s face, and it sits up straight before pointing a finger directly at itself. 

“Oh,” Leonard’s express falters suddenly.  
“Never mind how you just called the woman of your dreams an idiot,” Sara jumps off the bench and stands before him, looking ready and posed for action, “We’ve got a bunch of new problems. They messed with divine artefacts and shattered reality around Earth. It’s spreading, so we need to do containment.”

Leonard’s eyes go wide with surprise, “Wait. Shattered reality around Earth? Shouldn’t we head there to fix it?”

The Oculus stares at him curiously, with a hint of disbelief in response to his words, “You want to go back to Earth?”

The realisation of what he asked only just hits him.

Earth. 

This would be the first time he ever asked to go back. He hasn’t wanted to go back before. 

He shrugs, “Nothing quite like reality being fucked as an excuse to head back.”

XXX

“What the fuck’s a Time Bureau?” Leonard asks, overhearing one of the agents they had passed a couple of minutes ago.  
Sara scoffs as if the words themselves are offensive to hear, “Something stupidly flawed in its purpose. For a former Time Master, Hunter should really know better than to build a time organisation on Earth.”

“Right,” Leonard acknowledges, “That’s why the Vanishing Point works well for monitoring time. It’s not susceptible to changes.”  
“Exactly,” Sara exasperates with a dramatic wave of its hand, “Only the Pilgrim had a weapon that could alter reality within the Vanishing Point.” 

Only twice has Leonard been to Los Angeles. First was at the age of 21, taking a road trip with Alexa across the country. Second was for a heist about 10 years later. 

When the Oculus said that reality had broken around Earth, he expected some out of place oddities, but he didn’t expect this. 

Los Angeles is not what it once looked like. 

Towers protrude at right angles from the vertical walls of other buildings, defying all laws of physics. Masses of overgrown foliage blanket streets and scale billboards and signs. Even in the distance, the Hollywood sign has been replaced by a hundred-foot-tall space cannon that swivels around with green energy flowing through its conduits. 

A screeching roar echoes from nearby, and Leonard scales over debris in what was once a side alley, to discover a pack of dinosaurs tearing apart the carcass of a woolly mammoth. 

“Aww,” Sara whines at the sight, “Now they’re extinct again.”

His laugh is inevitable, and Sara guides him through the maze of alleys.

“Careful,” Sara’s firm voice stops him in his tracks, “Look.”

Between where he stands above the rubble, and the street just half a dozen meters away, a miniature maelstrom of gravity exists. 

He watches as a piece of steel falls into the gravity well, only to twist and contort violently until it rips itself apart, metal shards scattering the ground as it expels itself. 

“Thanks,” Leonard mutters. 

A thunderous boom rips across the sky, followed by a blinding light that gives way to a grey mass. 

A grey mass which appears to be hurtling through the sky and approaching the ground at high speeds. A grey mass, which looks like an awfully familiar Time Ship. 

Somewhere in the sky, amongst the other fractured pieces of reality, the ship must have clipped a gravity storm as it suddenly careers off at another angle. A laser of crackling green plasma streaks past where it once was, and Leonard realises that the space cannon had just tried to shoot it. He wonders whether the ship would have survived the blast.

However, thanks to its new trajectory, the ship begins hurtling towards a row of buildings and slices straight through one of the towers, crashing it to the ground. Plumes of dirt and concrete mark where the ship collides with the ground, guiding Leonard towards it. 

About 10 minutes later, Leonard looks out from the roof of a building to find the Waverider nosedived into the street. Distracted by the memories and thoughts going through his head at the sight of the ship, he doesn’t even realise the half dozen dinosaurs in front of it. 

“You feeling okay?” Sara’s asks softly, its hand finding his between them, anchoring his mind back to reality.  
“Nostalgic,” he drawls, eyes transfixed on the sight in front of him. 

Minutes pass before the cargo hatch, which hadn’t been submerged in the ground, opens to reveal seven small and distant figures stepping out into the street. 

Leonard feels his breath almost vanish as he watches them filter out and stand by the hull of the ship. Standing tall among them, Leonard immediately recognises the boy scout, watching as he points towards one of the dinosaurs. Off to the side, within close proximity of each other as always, is the young mechanic and the old professor, the latter of whom has a daughter that never existed before. Then there are two people he doesn’t recognise, a female with long dark hair, and another male who stands by Raymond. It’s too far away to discern any details about them, but Leonard figures they are the replacements the Oculus told him about. 

Then there’s Mick, big and brutish as always. It’s been so long since Leonard saw him last, and the mere sight of him brings back memories of their friendship. 

But it’s the last person of the group that really steals Leonard’s breath away. Appearing almost golden in the warm sunlight, Sara’s blonde hair captivates his attention. It’s not so much the mere sight of her that has him so enamoured, considering he could look to his right and see all of Sara’s beauty less than a foot away, but it’s the indescribable sensation that comes from finding himself back on the same planet as Sara Lance.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring off at the mostly familiar group of individuals he had called crew once upon a time. 

Three years. 

He hadn’t seen these people in three years. 

Leonard’s mind only seems to settle as he realises that they’ve disappeared behind a building and begun heading deeper into the city. 

“Man,” Sara clicks its tongue, “Their lives are gonna be boring as hell for the next six months. Come on,” he feels a tug at his arm, “There’s a piece of technology that really shouldn’t be here. We’ll take it back.”

“Shit,” Leonard mutters in shock as he watches a female agent get caught in a gravity storm that flings her body at blistering speeds into a nearby wall, killing her upon impact with a bone shattering crunch.  
Sara gestures dismissively, “Don’t worry about her. She’s a clone. Not the first time she’s died in the last five years. Won’t be the last.”

XXX

Usually, it takes four years to learn how to be a nuclear engineer. 

In that same time, as someone who spent most of his education days in juvie, Leonard learnt not just nuclear engineering, but cold-fusion, and how to make both a warp-core and a time drive. As if it were a mere piece of trivia, Leonard is dabbling in the science of sustaining supernovas and converting the fusion reactions into energy capable of powering the Oculus Cradle. 

It is without doubt, that all his accomplishments would not have existed were it not for the Oculus itself as his teacher. 

Leonard may have doubted his capacity to learn, but the Oculus maintained faith in him. Something not even teachers or his father had for him, and that only makes him loathe his childhood more so.

Having friends while growing up proved difficult for a kid with a criminal for a father. Maybe the other parents were right to steer their kids clear from him in school. They probably all patted themselves on the back for their intuition when Leonard was first arrested. 

Being friends with Mick was different. It was a friendship built out of survival when there was the ever-present risk of losing his life in the middle of the night. It was never a friendship about hanging out in the computer labs after school, booting up Elite on the computers and imagining that those polygon shapes in the 80s were actual spaceships. There was no ditching school and sneaking off to the movies. 

Juvie had set the tone for their friendship, and it became solidified under the unspoken promise of keeping each other alive. They were best friends, but only because they had no one else.

Leonard hates it with a passion. 

Not Mick or the friendship, but rather the circumstances regarding it. 

When the Oculus asks him about it, Leonard finds himself struggling for words as he tries to explain where his hate lies. The best answer he can develop is that he wishes it existed for better reasons. The Oculus understands him well enough. 

Over the years of their journey, Leonard considers the Oculus his best friend too. It will never overshadow or diminish his bond with Mick, but it provides an entirely different experience that he wished he had the opportunity of having as a child. The Oculus has become the best friend Leonard can confide in or hold onto when he feels lonely. The best friend that teases him relentlessly, daring him to take bold and risky moves, but never straying from his side the entire time. 

Some days, Leonard wishes he could introduce Mick and the Oculus to each other. 

Maybe that’s something he can arrange in the future. 

XXX

There have only been four people in Leonard’s life that he can say he ever loved. 

The first one, Lisa, is obvious. There is nothing, and has been nothing, he wouldn’t do for his little sister. 

The second was Alexa. The sexy red-head he courted as a teenager. The love of his life that held his heart or almost six years. He remembers that final heist vividly, down to the individual diamonds and crystals that were meant to go with the metal band and eventually form the engagement ring he would have proposed to her with. There’s a reason he always mentions her in the past tense. 

The third is Mick, and he considers it embarrassing just how long it took him to realise it. Only when he was freezing to death in the Waverider, huddled for warmth beside Sara, did he actually realise it. Every time Leonard experienced a close call with death, Mick was always there for him, but not that time. It was only when a couple hundred thousand miles of space separated them that he realised how much he needed his best friend with him. 

And then there’s Sara. At first, he hesitated on allowing much happen between himself and the assassin, for the memories and trauma of his past romance still haunted him in that aspect. It was easy to keep the attraction purely physical, because how could he possibly deny how his body felt at the sight of wavy blonde hair flowing behind her in the wake of a fight, fists striking out at lightning speeds followed by the crunching sounds of the enemies’ bones?

It was only when she started to reveal her inner demons and he witnessed the consequences of her resurrection, that he really began to let the attraction expand. He remembers talking her out of killing Stein, being the voice in her ear that helped her anchor her humanity. He remembers how she was the one to encourage him to make amends with Mick, although he’s sure she intended for something more verbal and less fisticuffs. He can never forget their moments in the Vanishing Point. 

Me and you.

Now, there’s a fifth name to add to that list. 

Despite being the most advanced entity of code in the universe, embedded into his every synapse, Leonard loves the Oculus just as much as the others. 

XXX

“Nervous?” Sara looks up at him with a playful smirk.

Leonard looks down at his hands and realises they’re shaking. He can’t see to make them stop. 

“Figures,” he drawls, lifting his gaze back up to the Oculus, “32 years, and the day has finally come.”

“You’ll be fine,” hands pat at his chest rhythmically.

Leonard nods, gaze staring out the window behind Sara, “Yep.”

His voice fails to sound convinced.

The city outside buzzes in the nightlife, flying vehicles whizzing by in the sky, leaving behind the glow of red taillights that practically paint pictures in the night sky.

“You have nothing to be afraid of,” Sara says with a notable certainty.

“Of course,” Leonard tries to respond with the same kind of certainty. 

He doesn’t seem to be able to match it.

“You’ve saved reality 10 times more than they have,” it adds casually.

His fingers can’t seem to stop tapping against his leg, “Right.”

“You dined with Gods and the Devil himself.”

Having dinner with ancient celestials was a unique experience. It was like going to a party, but every single guest was the hottest supermodel you’ve ever seen. And one of them was the actual Devil.

“You’ve been to places within the multiverse that no living creature has ever set foot.”

It almost makes him feel like Indiana Jones uncovering uncharted territory. 

“You built your very own spaceship-”

Leonard will never forget the excitement it provided him as he flew past some of the largest and most extravagant stars and other stellar objects he’s ever seen.

“-Until you crashed it like an idiot.”

While it lasted.

“You met my parents.”

Leonard raises an eyebrow as he looks down at a grinning Sara, “Because that went so well,” sarcasm spills among the drawl. 

“They approved of you in the end,” it pretends to fiddle with the collar of his shirt, physically incapable of straightening it, “Which, I must add, is quite possibly your greatest achievement.”

He rolls his eyes at that one, and the jittering nerves in his body begin receding, “Thank you.”

Sara smiles and takes his hand in one of its, “Always here for you, Len.”

His flashes a small smile as he gives its hand a little squeeze, “I know. Thank you.”

“So,” Sara grins, placing its free hand on its hip, “Got any smart-ass one-liners for when you see them? I’m thinking something along the lines of, I’m back motherfuckers.”  
Leonard lets out an amused huff and shakes his head, “I think a simple hello might suffice.”  
“Eh,” Sara shrugs casually, turning around and leaning its back against his chest, “I guess that will do,” its tone sounding mildly unimpressed, but he picks up on the jest.

They stand in silence for some time, both staring out the window of the apartment building. Sara raises a hand and points off to the moons in the sky, guiding his attention towards the eclipsing solar objects. 

It lets out this content sigh in his arms, relaxing further into his body, and Leonard can’t help but chuckle, “I still can’t believe how emotional a time-travelling, omniscient ASI can be.”  
Sara vibrates with laughter against him, meeting his eyes in the reflection of the window, “I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this without emotions, Leonard. Not to mention, you’d find me a dreadfully boring companion otherwise.”

Undeniably true. He never imagined he would say it, but he’s thankful for emotions. 

The Oculus proceeds to go over the specifics and intricacies of his return. Despite lasting 32 years, his body has hardly aged thanks to some life-extending time manipulation that the Oculus performs whenever they do a time jump. As of this moment, his body would only be that of a 35-year-old’s, approximately 10 years younger than what he should be. He’s warned that there will be some minor nausea after the transformation. 

“I won’t see you for a while,” Sara says later in the evening as Leonard sits out on the balcony of the apartment, “Figure it’s best to let you get settled back into the team before I make my grand reappearance.”  
A suspicious look forms on his face, “Grand, huh?”  
Sara smirks mischievously, “I’ll make it flashy.”

Leonard turns back to the city and nods, falling silent as the two moons move away from each other. 

“Are you ready?”

Leonard takes a long and deep breath, eyes closing as his head bows. Pushing himself to his feet, letting his arms hang by his side. 

“Yes.”

The Oculus moves to step beside him, leaning itself into his side, “Your future is in your hands now. All those what-ifs and maybes, they don’t matter anymore. When you return to the Waverider, whatever happens, is entirely up to you. Write your own future, Leonard Snart.”

“Thank you,” Leonard turns his head to look down at Sara’s face staring back up at him. 

Rising on its toes, the Oculus presses a kiss to his cheek, a heart-warming smile on its face when it lowers down

“I never imagined I would find solace again after being trapped in the Cradle,” the Oculus whispers, “But it’s because of you I was able to experience it again. I know this was the last thing you expected when you sacrificed yourself, but I’m glad that it brought us together.”

Leonard brushes the back of his finger along the side of its cheek, an amused smirk forming on his face, “This wasn’t half bad,” he drawls.

The Oculus laughs and gives him one last hug before stepping back and straightening itself before him. 

“Are you ready?”

32 years, and now it’s finally come to an end.

“Absolutely.”

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this (probably too long) one-shot. 
> 
> To Maricejayo (and I suppose anyone else who was interested), I hope this satisfies what you wanted from a relationship between Leonard and the Oculus. 
> 
> There will be a sequel to Of All Places coming eventually, but I want to continue working on some other stories, as well as begin a new one that I've been dying to write up. 
> 
> Until next time, cheers!


End file.
